It is that time of the year for so many businesses - the annual Christmas stock taking fun.

For many businesses it is the one time of the year when trading slows down enough to shut the warehouse and pull in extra staff for an all hands on deck approach; paying overtime is expensive though.

I spoke to one warehouse manager recently who described the 3 days before Christmas as the most stressful in his calendar; not what you want to give your team for Christmas.

For the administration teams and warehouse operators it isn't much better, I think it is fair to say that no one wants to be inventory counting on Christmas Eve ; get it done attitude, rather than a get it right.

Using an inventory management system with barcoding allows companies to move stock taking from being an event to a gradual process of perpetual inventory count. During lulls in demand warehouse operatives can be assigned areas to stock take. Inventory data can be updated in real-time with just two quick scans, first the item and then the location it is in.

Barcoding does away with writing things down on paper and manual data entry costs, and most importantly human errors!

How many warehouse managers will have a barcode system at the top of their Christmaslist, but will just get a stack of paper instead?